It wasn't the cultural differences or the lack of Western comforts that struck SHHS French and German teacher Andrea Bradd when she and District IB Coordinator John Moore led a group of 14 high school students on a spring break service trip to Cambodia.
It was the humanity of the Cambodian people.
"There was kindness and positivity in everyone we came across---from the women selling their goods at the market to the family we built a house for in the floating village, from the boat driver to the woman who sold us iced coffee off her small boat," she says. "We were always greeted by hands in a prayer position, near the chin and a slight bow. And we quickly learned to greet them the same way."
This was the second group of SHHS students to take a spring break service trip to Cambodia with Rustic Pathways, a local provider of travel and service experiences for students and educators. Moore, Bradd and the students spent four days of service in the Prek Toal floating village building a home and repairing a school house before visiting the ancient temples of Angkor Wat in the city of Siem Reap.
Both Bradd and Moore say the exchange of knowledge, experience, opinions and attitudes was so valuable to the students and also to them, as educators. On the flight to Cambodia, the group was encouraged to read "First They Killed my Father," a memoir by Shaker author Luong Ung that details her family's escape from the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields. Visits in the villages and to the temples gave the students a first-hand look into the lives and the Buddhism of the Cambodia people. Staying overnight in Prek Toal enabled the group to experience a very different, and much simpler, way of living.
"The last part of the IB mission statement says that other people, with their differences, can also be right," says Moore. "These students saw that this place couldn't have been more different than Shaker, but it can also be right."
Bradd says the experience was eye-opening for everyone.
"We have all come home more appreciative of what we have and less likely to take those things for granted," she says. "I am also inspired, as well as many of the other students, to continue our work and not just return to our day-to-day lives not having changed."
The following students traveled with Moore and Bradd to Cambodia: Cora Albers, Zachary Brown, Schuyler Butze, Margaret Dant, Dylan Freeman, Aziz Hassasnali, Drew Hubbard, Kevin LaMonica, Gus Mahoney, William Raddock, Essence Reddick, Miriam Ricanti, Kristi Seman and Juliet Webster.